Abstract

Approximately 57% of students in the United States work while attending college. For most of these students (81%), this is more than 20 hours a week. There has been shown to be a negative relationship between hours worked and academic achievement in studies in the United States as well as the United Kingdom and Australia. There is, however, no research to the authors’ knowledge as to how the number of working hours affects student learning in groups, and whether students in groups with varying work patterns report better learning outcomes in groups where student working hours are similar. This study reports that overall, greater working hours decrease students’ perceptions of the value and their experience of group work, and this occurs more with second- and third-year students. It also reveals that students studying in groups where there is a large proportion of students working more than 2 days a week displayed significantly more negative appraisals of their experience at the end of a project than their peers in groups where few students were working.